Category Archives: Clients

A New Beginning

It has been a while, hasn’t it? Quite a lot has happened in my life since the last blog post. My readers are completely forgiven for thinking I have vanished off the face of the Earth.

An Update on Me

For one, I finished my classes in the Fashion Department at City College of San Francisco. I earned two certificates of completion, one in Garment Construction and the other in Patternmaking. I have earned most of the credits necessary to complete a third certificate, Advanced Garment Construction, lacking only a class in Couture Sewing Techniques to qualify.

The culmination of two and a half years of work.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

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Fitting the BF Oxford Shirt, Part 3

In this third and final installment of our fitting series, we’ll see how all the previous fittings converge into a wearable shirt.

At the end of Part 2, the body of the shirt was falling into place, with the sleeves and neckline becoming the major issues of focus.  We’ll tackle those, and show actual fitting photos of the BF Oxford Shirt.  (Here’s a link to Part 1 and a photo gallery of the finished shirt if you are new to this series).

Muslin F

Issues with the body

Everything is finally looking OK.  That horizontal balance line in front appears tilted, but it’s really posture and camera angle and not the garment.

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Fitting the BF Oxford Shirt, Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 in a three-part series on fitting a shirt muslin for my partner.

In Part 1, we had discussed the importance of balance, as it affects the way the grain of the fabric hangs on the body.  I attempted to drape the neckline, armholes, and shoulders to better match the body, but I made a mistake – I did this all before trying to get the garment into balance.  The balance alterations caused several side effects with the other fitting adjustments, which complicated the fitting process.

In this installment, we get the balance issues sorted out, and then fix the placement of the back yoke and address the sleeves some more. Continue reading →

Fitting the BF Oxford Shirt, Part 1

This article embarks on a three-part series, showing how I approached the fitting process for the BF Oxford Shirt.

I’ll start by saying I’m not a fitting expert.  So some of this narrative will seem like a “two steps forward, one step back” sort of process (or even “one step forward, two steps back” in my case!).

As I understand it, that can even be the case for professionals who work their way through fitting a client. Fitting is a problem solving exercise, and sometimes experimentation is in order to find the best solution to a problem.

But what I will do is try to share some of the principles I’ve learned, and how I applied them in this process.  And in fact, while going back over my notes to write these articles, I’ve made some further realizations about the fitting adjustments I made and their effect on the garment.

Comments are welcomed. Continue reading →

The BF Oxford Shirt

This article begins a series on a recently completed dress shirt for my partner, Jim (hereafter referred to as “the Client”).

As with many of my projects, this one is a side quest: the original plan was to design a chambray work shirt for him. Since I last made shirts for him based of Kwik Sew 2000, I realized his body proportions have changed due to many hours at the gym.  The shirts are now a touch too small, particularly in length.  Plus, I’ve developed my fitting skills since I made those shirts and I thought the overall fit could be improved.

Six fitting sessions, over a period of several months, got me to the point where I was happy enough to go ahead with this shirt – which I think of as a wearable muslin.  In a reversal from my usual presentation, I’m opening with the finished project.  Future articles will talk more about how I got here, starting with the original Kwik Sew 2000 pattern.

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